» Winds of Winter Release: TBA

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But Raven being an ancient evil that sneaks himself past a wall meant to keep him out, by possessing someone of the Stark bloodline... And the Starks forgot the evil spirit could possess one of them to get past the wall.... fuck man that makes such a better storyline. And the Stark that was made into a Ice King to prevent the Raven from crossing the wall realizes he must cross the Wall and kill the body the Raven possess at all costs.... motherfucker.

Obviously my opinion here but I do not see him ever finishing it. He created a monster, a story so elaborate and filled with characters that I don't think he has a way to finish the story. On top of that, the show finished it for him. Even if it wasn't satisfying, he made his money and now he can just blame them for any critiques of the ending.

He could finish it if he concentrated on the main story instead of so many spin off or prequels.

Anyway, the problem with the number of characters has a very simple solution, the solution I believed the show will use but still the solution George might use: death. Ned's story didn't end, his life did, he died without finishing his mission or arc, the same goes for Robb, death can cull the number of characters and right now death is marching from the north. Just think about the battle of Winterfell, how many characters almost died swarmed by wights but made it out just because without them being any relevant for the story: Gendry and Tormund didnt do anything after and I doubt George would spare them, he could kill Brienne, he could kill Davos, he could have the dead kill Stannis, and so on.

Trust me, I want you to be right. I just don't see him doing it. Shortly after ADWD came out he had sample chapters for the next book and things seemed like they were moving along. That steadily dropped off to nothing, with no word of the book's release. We are on year 8 since the last book. There are so many signs that he has no intention of finishing, whether it is intentional or just a block on his own part.

It'll probably end up being similar to the Earth's Children series. We waited ages (12 years for the 5th book and another 9 years for the 6th book) and they were rubbish at best, the 6th book couldn't even be compared to a steaming pile of dog shit to be honest. Once author's start taking so long to finish a series it's a good indication that they're bored with it.

You can see this when the show became popular. He stopped writing and started doing fan events all the time (like viewings as private events in theaters and stuff like that). The show's ending is his ending. It was rushed, but the story is what it was going to be.

Hell, his blog post when the final episode aired spoke about the last two books as an after thought. To me it read, "Yeah I'm working on all these cool projects...oh and I guess those books I haven't finished." He will never finish them and he won't allow someone to ghost write them.

He created a monster, a story so elaborate and filled with characters that I don't think he has a way to finish the story.

While you're probably right I don't think it's a good argument. The Wheel of Time went on for a long time, and the writer (Robert Jordan) even intentionally wrote expansive notes knowing that he was likely to pass on before the story was finished. That story spanned 14 HUGE books (the last one is like 1,000 pages or something like that and neither RJ nor his ghostwriter had the inclination to describe food as vividly as GRRM does). It is possible to complete a story with tens to hundreds of story threads running at once in a way that is extremely satisfying and worth the time spent on it. The fact that GRRM doesn't know how to finish or is unwilling to finish the story in writing is a huge problem, and it gets worse with the fact that he is on record saying he won't let anyone else do it which, to me, seems selfish.

The show's ending is his ending. It was rushed, but the story is what it was going to be.

I agree that the events that occurred are mostly true in that Bran becomes king, but the story is much more sinister since Bloodraven will actually be king and he's someone with actual motives and plots. Same characters, same events, completely different story.

The only difference is that they wasted opportunities to explain Bran in any way at all. I think that's ultimately where all the rage at that development comes from. The worst was that they had like 3-4 chances in the last season to give us real context into him and when a character brought the topic up it would cut away instead or he would say something stupid that made no sense and told us nothing.

I suspect he will reach the same ending but I think he will have a much slower progression towards that ending that makes more sense in chacacters. Less "dragon lady bad" and more "Dany spends 3 books inches towards evil."

The shows ending is the true ending. D&D said in an interview a few years ago that they will use almost everything in the ending GRRM told them. GRRM will not finish his books. He said he has not finished TWoW due to the complexity of the story. So basically the story became too complex for him. Because of this, I do not understand the hate D&D have been getting. They used GRRM's ending. If GRRM himself can't even develop it in 9 years, then how should D&D do it in a few months?

I honestly wonder if season 6 is going to hold up if the books ever get caught up to that point. It was definitely good, but I feel like the fact that it was the first new addition in years to the story has kind of inflated the quality. It also benefited from not being too far chronologically from the material GRRM wrote. Theres a few book only story lines that have the potential to put season 6 to shame.

Arya was too quick for his facial expression to even change.......ok this pisses me off again, the guy literally no scoped a flying dragon's major neck artery with a spear. With those kinda reflexes he should've been able to kick the dagger up, break both of Arya's arms, punch her a few times before the dagger falls back down and he catches it to stab her, then drops the dagger like a mic.

Yeah, joking aside, ok, Arya kills NK but picture this: he dies slower than the others, his walkers fall and his wights die all around him but he still stands with cracks just slowly spreading from his wound, you see him stagger, he stabs Arya and walks slowly to Bran, Jon charges him too and they fight a little, the Night King is injured, dying, but still much stronger, he injures Jon and goes back to Bran, by now his body is falling apart but he still manages to run Bran through with his sword before dying. That way the big bad still takes out two main characters, but I guess that's just not a good enough end for the story of Bran the Broken

I'm pretty sure this came from George and would have been awesome if it had been better explained. Bran needs a willing blood sacrifice beneath the weirwood tree to do the magic that makes the Night King vulnerable. Theon has king's blood and is loyal to the Starks -- a perfect sacrifice. Bran knew that Theon would run into death rather than watch him die, which is why he positioned himself beneath the tree with Theon as his guard in the first place. It was all about setting up the blood sacrifice right at the moment it would be needed most.

I mean, why make such a big deal out of the magical properties of king's blood and show the Weirwood sucking up Jojen's blood when Bran became the 3ER if you weren't gonna tie all that together in the end?